Disconnect


# Disconnect
**Being a professional athlete is a hard work, requiring a great amount of dedication. This applies whether you are an athlete in the traditional sense of the word or an esports athlete. Furthermore, both have in common that it mostly begins as a hobby which in time gets more and more serious. And to the chosen few it ends up being their full-time work. When our hobby ends up being our full-time job it is especially important to learn to put our jobs aside to be able to “refuel” your resources. This applies to jobs in the traditional sense, but it especially applies to you esports athletes out there – no matter if you´re already a pro, an up and coming or consider esports a serious hobby. In this article we´ll look at what happens when we work and what happens when we don’t take breaks from work. Furthermore, I’ll show you a couple of tips on how to disconnect.**


_By Henrik Kamstrup Nielsen_

Many of us know the situation. We have an assignment at work we find interesting, and we find it hard to put it away. Putting our jobs aside when that job is also our hobby is even harder. You might not consider being a professional esport athlete your job – but it is. That’s what the word _professional_ implies. When you’re professional there’s a world full of expectations towards you. You must be able to cooperate. You must build the team. You must train together. Besides that, there’s everything around you that hasn’t got anything to do with the game on “field”. Press, commercials, fan events. You name it. The working days are long with great outside and inside pressure. Even adding changing working conditions, changing working hours and traveling across time zones to the mix. It requires a sturdy person to work under these conditions. Therefore, it is essential to remember to fill your life with other things that matter.

### **Disconnect – to Live a Life**

That’s easier said than done. Because what does it mean to live a life? That is a hard question to answer as there’s around 7,753 billion different answers. What I’m certain of is that not many of these people have ever sat down pondering that question. As it is, not many people go through their everyday life doing that many conscious actions. Therefore, they end up doing what they always do. That’s how people are created and in many ways that’s quite clever.

Researchers don’t agree 100 % with each other in this field, but in broad terms they agree that a normal human being is actively conscious between 1 and 10 % of their time every day. The rest of the time we let our subconsciousness do the rest of the work, essentially living our lives on autopilot. As mentioned, it is clever as our brain is resource-intensive muscle and being fully conscious takes time. If we were to be fully conscious all the time our brains and systems would quickly be fully overloaded with impressions, we had to process and decide what to do with.

The above also makes us creatures of habit. We do what we’re used to doing without thinking too much about it, not stopping to consider whether what we’re doing is good or bad. We just do it. If we occasionally stop to think about what it is we’re doing, our psyche will quickly come up with excuses to convince you to do what you’ve always done. It’s fine, right? No, no not necessarily. What happens is that our psyche believes that every change is dangerous, hence it tries to avoid changes. That’s what I call resistance.

Adding body chemistry to the mix supporting our habits makes it hard to do anything new. The body adds a shot of dopamine every time we do any action that brings around good emotions. Playing games, especially computer games, is one of the most addictive things we can put our biology up against, as games are designed to keep you engaged – with a lot of dopamine thrown into the mix. And we keep going because it feels really good. With that knowledge in mind, it will actually make it easier for us to do something about it. Bear with me for two more paragraphs, and I will tell you what you can do.

### **Stress – What You Should Be Aware of**

As previously mentioned, it’s not the bodily stress reaction that’s the main villain here. What is a problem, however, is that either we’re not aware of the signals the body is trying to send telling us that hey, you’re stressed or we’re simply ignoring those signals. Which is often accompanied with a thought: ”it will get better soon.” The primary reason we get sick with stress is because we end up ignoring the signals for too long and then the body simply shuts down.

In the coming paragraphs I will list the classification of stress I work from, including which signals you can expect from your body. Signals which are extremely important to be aware of and which you can use proactively. Because it is possible to do something before getting stressed, but it is up to you to take responsibility for your emotions and from what you feel in your body. The definition on the list is taken from a Danish book called “Mindre stress – mere overskud” (Less Stress – More Surplus) by Bjarne Toftegård.

### **Disconnect – What Happens When You Don’t Disconnect.**

The problem with not disconnecting is simple: we burn out, get sick with stress or worse. In many high intensity businesses comparable to the aviation industry this is known as fatigue. Fatigue has been a known subject in that industry for more than 20 years now. Because in that industry fatigue can ultimately cost hundreds of lives. In esport you don’t have the responsibility for other than one life. Your own. On the other hand, you only have one to live so it’s important to take care of that one life. It’s important you don’t burn out. Burning out will affect you personally and it will affect your career which will be drastically shortened after burning out. That would be a sad story to tell when you fought so hard to get to where you are now, right?

### **Disconnect – What Benefits You’ll Gain.**

A better, full life. A longer career (if you want to). Something to fall back on when you don’t want to be in esports any longer. Sounds good? It’s quite simple and the mentioned points are only part of the benefits you’ll gain. In many ways humans are complex beings but on many other levels, we’re simple beings living complex lives. By nature, we’re all born with 7 basic psychological drives all containing different emotions and behaviors. We share these drives with many animals, that’s why they are quite simple but also sometimes inappropriate because evolution is a slow worker. The cost here is that our brains haven’t been able to adapt to the complexity of life in the modern world. I’ll dig deeper into this another time. What you need to know for now is that these 7 drives all contain needs that need to be fulfilled for us to feel satisfied and ready to meet the challenges as a professional athlete.

### **Disconnect – What Can You Do?**

You must get away from work. Don’t work when you are not at work.. As mentioned, this can be extra hard when you are a professional gamer, as our brains would like you to keep playing because it feels nice. The biggest problem with that is that the brain isn’t necessarily aware of what is good for you in the long run. The only thing the primordial brain knows is that it’s nice to play and it awards you when you keep playing. It feels so nice that we end up forgetting other things in our life that feel good. If I haven’t convinced you yet, try and notice how hard it is to keep away from your phone. Notice how many times during the day you start to stare at your phone without any purpose to begin with. Computer games has the same alluring effect.

Well. Now you have decided to keep free when you have free time. What to do with that time? You should do something that brings meaning to your life and fills you up. How do you recognize things that do this to you? Again, it’s quite simple: do things that make you feel  **satisfied**. What that is differs from person to person. And there’s a risk, the first time you decide to consciously take time to discover you don’t know what activities will give you that emotion. If you find yourself in that situation there’s only one thing to do: find a notebook or a pad of paper and start being creative. Write down everything you believe will satisfy you. Even if you’re not sure if one activity will make you satisfied, write it down anyway and try it. If it doesn’t do anything for you, delete it from the list.

Examples to get you started: hang with your friends. Go to a restaurant. Read a good book. Go for a walk. Exercise. Be with your family. The sky’s the limit. The most important thing is that you get the feeling that these activities will recharge you mentally. The added benefit of these activities is that you will give your brain some much needed rest. Letting your brain rest will let it store all of what you and your teammates have worked on all day, adding that knowledge to the subconscious parts of your brain. That way you’ll be more focused the next day to learn new tactics and plays. Your brain is maybe the most important muscle in esport and like all other muscles it needs to rest to be ready for the next day.

Worth mentioning is this: When you have practiced bringing consciousness into your choices when to relax and actively chose your R&R, there’s no problem with playing games as a way to relax. You just need to be able to make that active choice, so you bring awareness to the fact that you do have other choices in your life.

I’ve mentioned the benefits before and I do it one more time:  **you avoid burning out, you prolong your career, you’ll sleep better, you’ll be better rested for practice next day**, and you might discover, that you don’t have to fear the day you have to stop your career, because you now know what other things you can do when you’re not professional anymore. You do this by having other meaningful activities in your life other than your esport and your team.

I’ll fix my point in this article with the example below:

|  |  |  |
|--|--|--|
|Reading|Esports|Esports|
|Sport|Esports|Esports|
|Girlfriend|Esports|Esports|


Every heading in the above table represents a life area / area of need for you making up the life you live. If your life currently looks a bit like the above, let me show you how your life will look when you’re by some reason or other, aren’t able to have esports as a part of that life:

|  |  |  |
|--|--|--|
|Reading | | |
|Sport| | |
|Girlfriend | | |



Empty, right? This is just an example, but an example that shows what happens when we let one part of our life take over too much of other parts of our life. When we can’t do that thing any longer, we just get emptiness. Work is a big part of many people’s lives, that’s how modern society works.

The point is: fill your life with more meaning than just work and gain all the mentioned benefits. And remember: if you have a hard time figuring out what to add to your life and help you disconnect – help is near.

The illustration is made by inspiration from:” Feel the Fear & And Do It Anyway by Susan J. Jeffers

_Visit Henrik´s website and Social media page for more information!_ 

- [Website](http://henrikkamstrupnielsen.dk/)
- [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/PsykoterapeutHenrikKamstrupNielsen)
- [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/henrik_kamstrup_nielsen/)

Stress


# Stress – Symptoms and What to do About It
**2020 was a hard year for Danish CS:GO team, Astralis where several players were unable to compete due to stress. Stress is an ever increasing problem in esport. Even though there’s a greater focus on the problem from organizations and the teams, being a professional esport athlete is still very stressful, with those and many more are solid stress factors which, in the end, will make you sick if you´re unable to recognize the signs of stress and what to do about them. This article might help you.**


_By Henrik Kamstrup Nielsen_

In the later years stress has almost become a buzzword. Everyone is talking about it. The awareness of stress is great but the sad part is: even though we talk a lot about it, still more and more people end up getting sick with stress. This happens in esports as well. The focus of this article is stress, what it is and what to do about it.

### **Stress – What It Is**

When people get too stressed, stress is “a _prolonged and exhausting psychological and physical strain due to a pronounced discrepancy between the demands from our surroundings_ (or from ourselves) _and our opportunities to fulfill them and for which the person is unable to adapt._” Quote from the Danish Psychological Pedagogical Dictionary.

What this high flying sentence is trying to tell us: stress overload happens when a person has too many _perceived_ demands vs what the person deems possible to actually do.

It’s very important to understand that stress is a natural part of being a human being. Stress is an innate emotion and bodily reaction which, through our evolution, has helped us survive in a very dangerous primordial world. That state of stress made it possible for us to perform extraordinarily for a limited period of time.

The state of stress begins in our most inner parts of our brain, what we know as the primordial brain, and is rooted in our drives known as aggression and fear. What makes human beings unique, from an evolutionary point of view, is that through the times we have been both prey and predator. That’s why we have some very powerful instincts buried in our fear and aggression drives, giving us a greater chance of survival.

Stress stemming from our aggression drive makes it possible to hunt and kill our prey (so we can eat), while stress stemming from our fear drive makes it possible to escape when hunted by the saber tooth tiger or other predators.

The above has been very helpful for humans through evolution, but today the problem is that modern society puts the brain in a hyperactive and vigilant state. Adding to the problem, we´re also born with the ability to _worry_. This makes an already explosive cocktail of ingredients even more explosive, as there´s hundreds and hundreds of things to worry about every minute of every day in a modern society. A way to look at it could be that we have moved from a fear of the outside world to an inner fear inside our heads, where the fear now lives almost full time a worries, very roughly speaking. We worry about everything and nothing. When we worry, it sets in motion a wide variety of strategies in all parts of our lives.

When we worry over extended periods of time, stress hormones enter our body – and this is where you should start to notice an emotional change and some changes in what you feel in your body.

### **Stress – What You Should Be Aware of**

As previously mentioned, it’s not the bodily stress reaction that’s the main villain here. What is a problem, however, is that either we’re not aware of the signals the body is trying to send telling us that hey, you’re stressed or we’re simply ignoring those signals. Which is often accompanied with a thought: ”it will get better soon.” The primary reason we get sick with stress is because we end up ignoring the signals for too long and then the body simply shuts down.

In the coming paragraphs I will list the classification of stress I work from, including which signals you can expect from your body. Signals which are extremely important to be aware of and which you can use proactively. Because it is possible to do something before getting stressed, but it is up to you to take responsibility for your emotions and from what you feel in your body. The definition on the list is taken from a Danish book called “Mindre stress – mere overskud” (Less Stress – More Surplus) by Bjarne Toftegård.

**Green stress**: also known as _everyday stress_ or _acute stress._ That kind of stress is known from what we experience in short bursts during the day. Examples of acute stress are: irritation, being nervous or intense moments towards the end of the round, you’re currently competing in.

_Bodily reactions to be aware of_: light shaking, sweating, palpitations, a dry mouth, unrest or anxiety, tenseness.

_All reactions are temporary and the body will calm down again when the stressful situation is over._

**Yellow stress**: also known as _persistent stress_. This is where we are stressed for a period. You might have an exam, you might be moving, life changes or a tournament where you have something on the line.

_Bodily reactions to be aware of:_ **all reactions from** **green stress**  plus bad sleep, tiredness, unrest, thoughts, irritability, psychological enclosed, easier spells of crying, resistance and reluctance.

_It’s important to get some rest if you’re here._

**Red stress**: also known as _serious stress_. This is where you end up if you have been persistently stressed for extended periods of time. This is where your system really starts to get overloaded. This typically happens when you have too many assignments, too much press or fan work or too many tournaments in a row in too many different countries and time zones.

_Bodily reactions to be aware of:_ **all the reactions from** **green** **and** **yellow stress** **are** _**worsened**_**.** The reason they do that is to make us **stop** what we are doing. Furthermore we now begin to overperform, ponder and worry about everything, and start wondering if you are really any good at anything at all. Additionally we put unrealistically high demands on ourselves and an eternal hunt for recognition from our peers or outside world.

_Symptoms:_ yes, you read the right. You’ll get other symptoms you need to be aware of now. Hopefully you’re now beginning to recognize you should have stopped a long time ago, right? Symptoms you’ll experience now are: memory failure, mental absence, it will be much harder to concentrate, inexplicable pains, aggressiveness, increased susceptibility to disease and unable to find the mental surplus to be with other people.

**BLACK STRESS:** also known as: total breakdown.

_Bodily reactions to be aware of_: you have been shut down. Full system failure. You _don’t_ want to be in this condition. This is an extreme overload of your system and something that will affect you for the rest of your life. Furthermore, it will put a massive strain on your loved ones and environment as well. Stress from this part can and will in time lead to depression if you don’t get help.

### **Stress – What You Can Do About It**

When you feel the bodily signs of stress or get the emotional stress response – the best and most imminent cure is _rest_. The longer you get down the stress checklist, the more important rest becomes and the harder it will be for you to get. Because the body is on full alert and your thoughts are running away with you, everything will be much harder to handle. What is even more important is that you need to take some time off from what is stressing you out, which in the beginning can be very stressful. I know, it’s a paradox. What you need to do is something that will recharge your mental and physical batteries. Rest, exercise (if you’re really stressed the exercise needs to be light), be in the company of people you love and care about. Be advised that extended use of “screens” prolong the stress healing process as the screen keeps the stress hormones active and makes it harder to sleep. Mindfulness, meditation and / or calming music will also help you relax.

If you´re reading this article, a good guess is that gaming to some degree is your hobby as well as your professional job. It’s not an easy combination, because many of our hobbies are chosen to help us relax. This relaxation point is void when hobby and job coincide. How you want the balance to be is up to you, but if you still want to play games as a hobby, my clear recommendation is that you play another game than the one that’s your job.

### **Stress – What You Can Do To Prevent It**

Getting stressed is unavoidable. Stress is a part of being a human and as already mentioned our lives are full of stressors. But it’s up to you to not let the stress get out of hand like a runaway train.

**You need to learn** to point your attention to your body and what you feel. Your body _will_ tell you what your status is. What you need to learn is to trust those signals and take them seriously. Consider your body signals as the damage indicator on your screen when playing a game. You take that one seriously, you react to those signals, and you need to learn to trust the signals your own body is sending you. If you have a hard time feeling your body, I recommend you´ll treat yourself to a massage and during those sessions concentrate on how that feels. There are other methods to learn to feel your body again, and I will get back to that subject at a later date..

**You need to learn** to react to your emotions. This is where it will get tough for many of you. The reason for this is that many of us have learned to suppress our emotions, especially those we consider _bad_. Those of us working in high intensity environments have at a minimum learned to somehow suppress our emotions for shorter or longer periods of time to be able to do the work we do. Your emotions, both good and bad, are there to tell you something about you, and you must learn to listen to that. This is where a qualified psychotherapist might come in handy.

**You need to learn** to work with your thoughts. This isn’t easy as our thoughts are often the very thing that “runs” away when you get really stressed. Another place where a qualified coach or psychotherapist can help you.

As a final remark it is important to stress that you need to seek help from a doctor if you end up getting sick with stress. If you´re unable to contact a doctor yourself, get someone to help you.

![enter image description here](/images/posts/stress2.jpg)

_If you are interested in reading more about Henrik and about what it is he can help with, you will find relevant information below:_ 

- [Website](http://henrikkamstrupnielsen.dk/)
- [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/PsykoterapeutHenrikKamstrupNielsen)
- [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/henrik_kamstrup_nielsen/)

An introduction to mental health in e-sports by our new partner, Henrik Kamstrup Nielsen.

Mental health in Esports


# Introduction to some of the challenges with E-sports Athletes Mental Health and how to solve them.
An introduction to mental health in e-sports by our new partner, Henrik Kamstrup Nielsen. Henrik is 39 years old and lives in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has been a passionate gamer since age 5 and to this day still has a lot of love for games. He is a Psychotherapist with basis in Biopsychology. Master coach and Stress coach. Henrik has put together some information regarding some of the main challenges that one can face in E-sports today. 

_By Henrik Kamstrup Nielsen and Rasmus Hansen_ 

**As it is now, most teams and organizations do believe that they take care of the E-sports athletes´ mental health. Granted, they do more than ever to help the athletes, but the support system is not nearly enough, and we risk hurting the young people more than helping them in the long run if we continue the current praxis. Let us dive a bit deeper into what these young athletes might be dealing with and how to help.** 

Let us start by defining mental health: 

”Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood.”

Definition from mentalhealth.gov

This is how most major E-sports teams handle their athletes mental health: 
- They have a coach.
- They have a sports psychologist.

This is definitely a good starting point and it is better than “doing nothing”.  Many years of coaching have shown that coaching is improving performance in the short run. For the lucky ones this might extend to their whole career. The sports psychologist is down the same alley. But both are, most of the time, solely performance based, so that the individual will perform at top tier levels. **For the good of the team**. 
Well, good for the team. **Not very good for the individual**. Let me elaborate.

There is no doubt that E-sport is a highly competitive and a highly exposed world with attendance passing beyond millions worldwide for the mayor events. It is a world with extreme peer pressure and extreme pressure from the outside. Everybody has an opinion about the team’s performance and people are not afraid to call out individuals, especially if they perform below their normal standards. This is **EXTREMELY** stressful for the athlete. Many of whom started out gaming as a hobby and suddenly find themselves in a totally different environment than their home bedroom - or the local E-sports club. Today, you can go from an almost unknown player one day, to superstar the next. It is a fantastic opportunity but it has its downsides. 

One mayor issue is stress handling. As mentioned in the mental health quote, stress handling is a mayor part of mental health. As the human brain works, there are many things in a modern world that are stressful, especially for young people and especially when you are exposed to the _public_. Your brain simply is not ready to handle this. And more and more are having” out of game” periods, sick with stress.  

But the teams and organizations _have_ mental coaches, they _have_ sports psychologists. Still, this is happening. Why? Because we tend to treat the athletes not as humans, but as robots that needs to perform – nothing else matters. When they do not perform any longer, they are out to find their own ways from then on. Like racehorses becoming too old – you are out.
Some people have, by coincidence or life circumstances, a more natural mental hardiness than others, but mostly it is more by luck than anything else that we see this in top performers. They are the few chosen ones that just seem to be unshakeable. The rest manages for a while and finally gives in when_their body and mind cannot deal with it anymore._When you get sick with stress, this is what is happening; the signals from the body have been ignored for too long, and then the body says:” Okay, if the idiot keeps ignoring my signals, I will then send one he / she cannot ignore.” **Full system shutdown**.

So how do you prepare yourself or E-sports athletes for the extreme pressure? How do you give them the tools to handling other people’s opinions? How do you make them more mentally hard to be able to handle all of this? Throughout their careers and beyond? The answer is psychotherapy in combination with coaching.
Psychotherapy is quite overlooked today as a method of self-development. When most people think about self-development, they either think coaching or going to a psychologist. Psychotherapy is a quite powerful tool if you are willing to work with yourself. Where psychotherapy is most powerful is, that you get to re-explore your past, and by talking and get emotional relief, you will end up with acceptance. I use a variety of techniques to help a client. Knowledge and acceptance give you a choice. You will get to influence your now, both emotionally and behaviorally. Moving forward, in collaboration with Skybox we will provide many examples and ideas as to how this can be done. 

The reason it is so important to work with our past is, that most of our behavior and feelings are formed in very early childhood and adolescence, forming our resistance to some _“bad”_ feelings, and developing coping strategies to try to avoid these feelings. And if we do not take a good look at these feelings and process them in therapy, you are basically running around with behaviors and emotions suited for a 1–15-year-old child. Some of the developed strategies might make sense as an adult, but many of them needs to be updated.

When the person has become aware of what they have learned emotionally and behaviorally, they can start forming the emotions and behavior they want as an adult. How do you form emotions as adult? By **training new behaviors**. The **ONLY** way to gain new and mature emotions is by training new behavior. When you are here, you can begin coaching regarding the athletes´ (could be yourself) and/or the teams wishes. Moving forward they will be so much easier to gain and sustain. 
The world of E-sports is a very _tricky_ one. There will be ups and downs. However, these ups and downs will be so much easier to handle if the athlete is emotionally mature with a great understanding of where they come from and where they want to go. It is basic personal leadership – and you are only able to be a good leader in your own life with age-appropriate feelings and behavior. 

**The advantages of competent psychotherapy**

- Psychological robust athletes with great resilience to pressure.
- More stable performance over time.
- Less swing in the up and down curve.
- Athletes that will be able to stay sharp in their chosen line of work for a longer time, as they will get the tools to free themselves of the matches when they are finished.
- Better sleep.
- Less stress.
- A great toolbox to handle expectations and other peoples opinions. 
- A whole human being.

![ESPORTIAN](/images/posts/hkn.jpg)

_We, Henrik and Skybox, are super excited to bring lots of relevant content and coaching to our users. If you are interested in reading more about Henrik and about what it is he can help with, you will find relevant information below:_ 

- [Website](http://henrikkamstrupnielsen.dk/)
- [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/PsykoterapeutHenrikKamstrupNielsen)
- [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/henrik_kamstrup_nielsen/)

Furious Gaming, one of the organizations with the longest history in E-Sports in Argentina.

Customer story: Furious Gaming


# Customer story: Furious Gaming
Furious Gaming is an Argentinian Esports organization founded more than 10 years ago. They compete in many different gaming titles, however this interview has conducted with focus on CS:GO. Furious Gaming is currently ranked as #20 in South America, but they aspire climb the ladder in 2022. 

We had the chance to have an interview with their CS:GO coach Pablo Paez (Xiguinilster), who told us about the teams achievements, the scene in Argentina as well as why Skybox has been a great tool for them to use the past 6 months. 

![Furious Gaming](/images/posts/FG1.png)

### What have been the main challenges for Furious Gaming with the entire COVID-19 situation in South America? 

Since the beginning of the pandemic, most of the tournaments were online and the team had a considerably big presence among them. We participated in 31 online tournaments just in 2021 and 1 LAN; FireLeague 2021. At the online tournaments, the team had different experiences regarding rules, and tournaments’ requirements. We had to face situations in games in which the coach (me) could not be present with the team, not being able to make any changes due to the scoring system and, having to manage the talent remotely, which makes it even more difficult to change tactics. **Nevertheless, with our participation in the first LAN tournament, the change of atmosphere after being more than a year without any on-site competition was gratifying and we enjoyed every aspect of it.** 

### What is the CS:GO scene like in South America and more specifically in Argentina?

**CS:GO in Argentina and South America**

Pablo told us that the scene in Argentina since COVID-19 began, has actually seen an increase in competitions from low to high level, which allowed for an organic and competitive growth among teams. **The scene has a lot of potential and growing visualization, but we need to be more structured and professional when it comes to tournaments organizations, teams, and players.**
The CS:GO scene in South America should be considered more by brands and tournaments. One of the biggest limitations is the economic factor and the inside reality of each country generating, in some situations, the loss of talent since players are not able to completely dedicate themselves to the game, which is creating a gap between South America and the rest of the world. 

![Furious Gaming](/images/posts/FG2.jpeg)

### Skybox, an essential tool of Furious Gaming

Skybox is a tool that all teams and players that want to go far should be able to access. It allows us to exteriorize more than in a traditional demo from inside the game. **Its simple use generates much more pedagogical dynamics in the training of players and teams**. I recommend all teams and players to integrate this tool for a better evolution and understanding of CS:GO. 

_Finally, we asked Pablo what message he would give to players in Argentina and South America, if they want to succeed on the CS:GO scene._ 

To dedicate to the game, you need first to be committed to yourself since you will sacrifice many things to accomplish your goals. 
**Constancy and effort, defeats talent.**
Being retrospective and emphatic are the main characteristic a player needs to become a pro player, if a player is professional in his mind, sooner or later the objective will be accomplished. – **Pablo Paez (Xiguinilster)**. 

Want to know more about Furious Gaming? Go check them out!
- [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/FuriousGamingLA/)
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/furiousgamingla?lang=en)
- [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/furiousgamingla/?hl=en)

Skybox Technologies appoints new board members, raises €2m in bridge round.

New board & investment


Match visualisation and Analytics company *  Technologies* [Skybox](https://directory.esportsinsider.com//company/skybox) has appointed three new members to its board of directors and raised €2m (£1.7m) in funding.

According to the release, the bridge round will be used to grow the company’s activities. This includes a focus on expanding its broadcasting and analysis tech, as well as launching new partnerships. Moreover, **Dave Harris** (Guinevere Capital), **Marco Blume** (Pinnacle Sports) and **Lee Lagdameo** (Axle Equity Partners) will join Skybox’s board.

**Finn Peder Hove** will remain the Chairman of the Board for Skybox. In addition, the company’s CEO and Co-founder **Ethan Cooper** will remain as an interim board member.  

![INVESTMENT](/images/posts/investmen2.jpg)

Skybox is a company specialising in spectating, visualisation and analysis tools for esports games. Notably, Skybox was the provider of visualisation and spectator tools for the  [PGL](https://directory.esportsinsider.com//company/pgl)  Major Stockholm 2021, as well as a partner of ESL and  [BLAST](https://directory.esportsinsider.com//company/blast)  events. Last month, the company launched a pilot of its new fan spectating solution, Skybox Live, at the Red Bull Flick finals held in Helsinki.

Dave Harris is the current Managing Director for Guinevere Capital and former chairman of EXCEL Esports. Harris was also the Founder of Esports Game Association Australia and the Founder of the Esports High-Performance Center. 

Regarding the announcement, Harris noted: “I have no doubt Skybox will continue to add value both independently and working side by side with game developers to help enhance professional esports play for teams and the fan experience for those watching.  They have already created tools for one of the most established names in CS: GO and are now also working behind the scenes on some of esports latest titles.”

Harris is joined by Marco Blume, a former professional poker and Magic: The Gathering player who is currently the Trading Director at Pinnacle. The final new board member is Lee Lagdameo, the Investment Manager at Axle Equity Partners. Lagdameo previously held the position of Corporate Advisory at Guinevere Capital.

**Ethan Cooper, Skybox’s CEO,**added: “Dave, Marco, and Lee have been providing input into Skybox for some time and I am excited to now have them formally join our board. Their diverse range of expertise and acumen within gaming and esports will be invaluable as we scale Skybox.”

**Esports Insider says: The new investment will improve Skybox’s ability to cooperate with partners and strengthen its team. Moreover, the three new board members bring expertise and experience in scaling business.**

Source of article: _[Skybox Technologies appoints new board members, raises €2m in bridge round - Esports Insider](https://esportsinsider.com/2021/12/skybox-investment-board-members/)_

Organization dedicated to help students from around the world obtain e-sport scholarships.

Partnership with eSportian


_Skybox is partnering up with eSportian, an organization dedicated to help students from around the world obtain e-sport scholarships in universities around the United States. We believe in helping our users and the CS:GO communities, and therefore we are extremely proud and excited to move forward together with eSportian and hopefully help more young players emerge and receive scholarships in the United States._ 

### What is eSportian and how exactly does everything work? 
Esports branch of  [www.deaquiparafuera.com](http://www.deaquiparafuera.com) +17 years sending students to US high schools and universities. eSportian advise, help and send students to university esports teams in the United States so that they can combine their studies with their passion for gaming. eSportian collaborates with more than 175 universities across the United States, with more than 25 games, their selection of young talent and opportunities makes them unique as well as helping the student and their family step by step throughout the entire process. 

![ESPORTIAN](/images/posts/esportian1.jpeg)
​
### What would a normal day look like when being on an esport scholarship? 
Training begins first thing in the morning before going to class, a one-hour session of physical conditioning to strengthen the muscles we use the most when training and competing to avoid injuries. Then there are the morning classes that are usually three to four hours followed in the afternoon by a 2-3 hour or 4-5 hour training depending on the requirement of the university. Competitions in leagues or tournaments can be online or in person. The trips made to compete, accommodation and food expenses are included in the scholarship assigned to the student.

### A partnership between eSportian and Skybox makes perfect sense.
The importance of being able to improve your gameplay, understanding, tactics and general skillset is of great importance if you want to become a competitive player within CS:GO. The Skybox platform, the Battle Room and the Skybox 3D client can help and assist players in many different ways. Now, as a young player (potentially a student) that is dreaming of going pro, a great first step could be to get a scholarship. Combining your passion with getting a degree from a top university is a great opportunity. Moving forward, Skybox and eSportian will work together to help the CS:GO communities and the young players reach their potential and we hope that we together can help talent obtain scholarships in the United States. 

### This sounds amazing. What to do and how to get started? 
Go ahead and create your free profile on _Esportsboard_, that is available on both Android and Apple. The application allows the student to be recruited in the most transparent way possible. When downloading the application, the student has the option of filling in their academic and esports profile with the information that the coaches are looking for.

In the “Events” area of ​​the application, players and their families will be able to see all the events that both companies organize with their collaborators in the 25+ video games that universities in the United States offer scholarships. At each event, the university coaches will be present observing the competition and through the app, look at the academic and sports profile of the student to see if it is compatible with the university. If it is compatible, the coach contacts the student within the “Chat” of the app to arrange a meeting. At the meeting, the eSportian team will be present to translate and make sure that all the questions from the player and his family are answered by the coach.

![ESPORTIAN](/images/posts/esportian2.jpeg)
​
### Additional information regarding Esportsboard.
Esportsboard allows you to compete in tournaments being watched by university coaches from the United States and most importantly, interact with them with the assistance of the eSportian team. If the player and the family want to move on after the meeting with the coach, eSportian holds a personalized informative meeting in advance, having filled out a pre-meeting form to know apart from the academic and sports profile available in the app, consider factors such as annual investment possible from the family, location, university size, university profile as well as the career that the student wishes to pursue among other factors.

Once the meeting is held, eSportian provides a work proposal detailing all the steps of the process, how they work with the player and his family. The work proposal considers the needs of the player, academic and sports profile to introduce the investment that the family will have to make for the student so that eSportian can guarantee offers in university Esports teams. The interaction with the coaches, the monthly events, the briefing and the job proposal is all without cost and commitment. Before investing money, the student already knows his possibilities in the universities in the United States and together with his family, he makes the decision to continue his educational project in the United States with the help of eSportian and Esports College & Career Pathways.

For additional information, have a look at the website and the different Social Media accounts (links are below).
- [Website](https://www.esportian.com/)
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/esportian)
- [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/esportianeducation/)
- [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/eSportianeducation)

PGL partners with Skybox Technologies for PGL Major Stockholm 2021.

PGL & Skybox


Esports tournament organiser  [PGL](https://directory.esportsinsider.com//company/pgl)  has named analysis and visualisation company *  Technologies* [Skybox](https://directory.esportsinsider.com//company/skybox)  as an official partner for the **PGL Major Stockholm 2021**CS:GO championship. 
As a part of the agreement, PGL will use Skybox Technologies’ 3D match visualisation and analysis software. This will power both real-time and post-match insights and analysis during broadcasts of the event.

**Silviu Stroie, PGL’s CEO,** spoke on the announcement: “We are preparing a tremendous Major in Stockholm, and we want to work with the best names in the industry to have a legendary show. 
“We have an outstanding talent lineup, and having Skybox as partners will allow us to enhance the analysis segments and offer our viewers the clearest picture over the best strategies in the world. Complex plays need to be carefully explained, and this is our main goal behind this collaboration.”

In addition, Skybox technologies will also provide its services to media holding company **WePlay,** responsible for the Russian language broadcast of the major. The event is set to take place from October 26th to November 27th at the Avicii Arena in Stockholm, Sweden.

**Anders Blume, Skybox Technologies Co-Founder**, commented: “We are extremely proud and honoured to be working with PGL for the upcoming Counter-Strike Major, helping to provide real-time analytics and visualisation for analysts and fans alike. 

“This is a big step for Skybox and we look forward to helping make this the best Major ever.”

**Ethan Cooper, Skybox CEO**, stated: “The Major is the biggest CS:GO event in two years. We are extremely happy for the opportunity to work with such exceptional companies on such a huge event.  
“PGL has some awesome things in store for the global production and WePlay have gone all-in for the Russian language regions. It’s going to be a very exciting tournament with amazing production and the Skybox team are proud to be contributing to this”. 

![ESPORTIAN](/images/posts/pgl-x-skybox1.jpeg)

**Esports Insider says: Based on the recently announced partnership deals for the PGL Major Stockholm 2021, it seems that PGL is placing a great emphasis on data insights and analysis. Both of these are necessary for enhancing the tournament experience for those involved, from spectators to athletes to sponsors. It will be interesting to see how these partnerships will help improve the event in this regard.**

HAVU, is the #1 ranked team in Finland and has used Skybox to perform tremendously in 2021.

Customer story: HAVU


_HAVU Gaming is a Finnish e-sports organization, founded back in 2017 by current CEO Lasse Salminen. Their goal was to become the best Finnish CS:GO team and help the young Finnish talent along the way with support and guidance. Today, they are the #1 ranked team in Finland and currently ranked as #34 in World ranking (source: HLTV. 24.8.2021).  Besides CSGO, HAVU has a top tier team in NHL and are looking to expand into other game titles moving forward._

We had a chance to ask HAVU coach Taneli Veikkola (disturbed) a few questions regarding the CS:GO scene in Finland as well as how Skybox has helped them with an impressive (so far) 2021.

![HAVU](/images/posts/HAVU1.jpeg)
​
### Finland and the challenges with the growing CS:GO community. 
For some time, Finland has experienced a growing interest in E-Sports, in particular, CS:GO. However, Taneli explains that there has been an issue with how the players could potentially move from casual gamers to a competitive level: **“Finland has always had a big player-base but the biggest problem we have is the lack of structure. Most people just play for fun without a goal and that’s why things have looked a bit grim for the past few years”**.

HAVU focuses on using national players on their roster, and do their very best to all the time scout for new and upcoming talents. This means that casual players with talent, now can aim to play for teams such as HAVU. HAVU is dedicated to help and support the CS:GO community in Finland, and as the best team in Finland, this is a great way of showing young talent that there is something to aim for. 
​
### Higher performance with Skybox. 
2021 has been a great year for HAVUs CS:GO team. Since early 2021 HAVU has been using Skybox to help them along the way. Taneli on Skybox and why it has been essential to the teams performance: **“We’ve used Skybox a lot for preparing for officials and to see where we went wrong in the rounds we lost. We use it daily to make sure we aren’t doing things wrong and to fix miss plays before those plays become a habit”.**

![HAVU](/images/posts/HAVU2.jpeg)
​
### Why teams should use Skybox.
There are several benefits for teams, when using Skybox compared to different tools. Teams that want to develop and play more competitive as well as professional teams can use Skybox for different reasons. Taneli explains: **“It’s a lot faster to use than CSGO’s demoui. You can watch like five demo’s in the same time in Skybox than one in CSGO demoui. Also you can speed-run through the demos if you want to see patterns by certain players you might face in the different sites”.**

Want to know more about HAVU Gaming? Go check them out!
- [Website](https://havu.gg/)
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/HAVUgaming)
- [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChPzVNN1oVV1Sd41s1wQTkw)

An amazing journey started for 8 Ballers around 6 months ago when they started using Skybox as their analysis tool

8 Ballers Esports and their growth with Skybox


# 8 Ballers Esports and their growth with Skybox
_There are many ways of using Skybox to make sure that you grow and learn as a team. 8 Ballers from Australia is a great example of this. They started out as a CS:GO team back in the beginning of 2021, with the aim of promoting and developing amateurs to become as close to top level players as possible, with the right coaching and support. Through out the 6-7 months 8 Ballers exclusively used Skybox as a tool for demo reviews, analysis and tracking the team(s) progression._ 
​
_In the span of 6 months 8 Ballers went from playing in the open amateur divisions in Australia to now playing in the highest tier tournaments that is available in Australia. We had a chance to sit down and speak to _**_Mohammad Tizani_**_, coach for the CS:GO team at 8 Ballers and ask him some questions._ 
​
### 8 Ballers; their development and goals.

**Mohammed provides a bit of insight into why Skybox has been a great tool to use to achieve the goals the team have:**
_Our goals are to provide talented, passionate groups of players the necessary tools and support staff to succeed. With tools such as skybox, support staff in coaches, analysts and esports psychologists we aim to prove that success stories can be more commonly achieved._
​
Skybox has been an amazing tool to have at our disposal. Finding micro details in demos of the best teams in the world and implementing the theory into our game. The overviews and speed that you can repeatedly watch rounds is great. The portability is also amazing and we were able to use this tool at our bootcamp and on the road.
​

![ICL](/images/posts/8b-1.png)
​
### Development means more challenges and an increased workload.
_Making the transition from amateur to playing at very competitive tournaments is quite difficult._​

**How did Skybox assist you guys, and why is it that it can be a very valuable tool for other teams in your situation?**
Teams that have a similar vision as the 8ballers CSGO roster will greatly benefit from using Skybox to analyse top tier competition and review their own demos to correct mistakes, understand gaps in your playbook and get an edge over your division.

**What are the key areas that Skybox helps you at?**
The key areas Skybox helps us is finding the micro details, protocols and macro play in top tier competition. When analysing using Skybox it is much easier to identify these things and implement them into our theory.
​

![ICL](/images/posts/8b-2.jpg)

**There is a lot of challenges and areas that are important when developing an Esports team. Can you name a few that was key for 8 Ballers?**
Coaching, esports psychology and mentoring has also been a success factor. Having talented and passionate individuals are the ingredients and we are the chefs to cook it up.

8 Ballers socials:
- [Website](https://www.8ballers.net/)
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/8ballersesports?lang=en)
- [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/7Ha7NfBYdZ)

ICL is an organization with members dedicated to help one another add value to the CS:GO communities in Ireland.

ICL - a small, but dedicated organization with multiple purposes


_The Irish Challenger League, also known as ICL is an organization with dedicated and involved individuals from all over Ireland. Skybox and ICL collaborated on a 24-hour charity event running from the 5th to the 6th of June 2020. Moving forward, Skybox and ICL has formed a partnership, hoping that the collaboration will help the CS:GO scene and communities in Ireland grow. I had a chance to sit down with _**_Adam Conway_**_, head Admin of ICL for a chat and ask a few questions._
​
### ICL and how it all started
​
**What is ICL and how did it all start?**
​
The Irish Challenger League (ICL) is the central hub for all things Irish Counter-Strike and has had multiple iterations over the years. Started as a passion project by Fletcher and DeanJB over IRC in 2016 in the form of the Irish Pugging Service (IPS) it has grown to become a whole lot more. Over the last year, as Irish Counter-Strike grew in the university scene especially, ICL took off in the hands of a large staff team and frequent tournaments with prizes. Prizes for each season were put up by staff members and community contributions, whereas prizes for tournaments were made up of entry fees. 
​
All of the staff members have been active in the Irish Counter-Strike community for years, and all of us are extremely passionate about the game and the community that has followed it. We all want the game to grow in Ireland and we are doing everything that we can for it to, especially because as we’ve demonstrated, the community that we have nurtured and grown over the last year especially is capable of doing so much more than just playing video games. We know that our community is passionate and caring, and that’s why we knew we could organize and pull off a 24-hour charity event.


![ICL](/images/posts/icl-1.png)

### A 24-hour charity event for a good cause 
​
**You guys decided to do a 24-hour charity event for a good cause. Can you elaborate on why this decision was made and what charity you chose?**
​
The charity we chose was Focus Ireland, and the reason for that is because of the current housing crisis in Ireland. According to Focus Ireland, in April 2021, the number of homeless families had increased by 232% since July 2014, which is when the Irish government began publishing homelessness figures. 
​
As Focus Ireland also points out, these are the “official” homelessness figures - the organization reports that there are large numbers of young people who do not count as “homeless” in the eyes of the government, but nevertheless do not have a home to go to. In April 2021, there were 925 families accessing emergency accommodation, and in 2019, Focus Ireland provided support to over 14,000 people across Ireland. It can be extremely difficult to find a place to call home in Ireland at times, and people can be searching for weeks, months, and sometimes even years to find suitable accommodation to live in. 
​
The housing crisis is a situation near and dear to many of our community members’ hearts, and given the Irish community’s support for this event, it is absolutely something we will want to do again in the future. If we can leverage our community for good, then we’ll be looking for every opportunity to do so. 
​

![ICL](/images/posts/icl-2.png)

_More than €3.600 was raised during the event and a bit over 4.000 people were watching. Impressive._

### Partnership with Skybox
​
**What kind of value does a partnership with Skybox present to ICL and what does this mean for you as an organization moving forward?**
​
A partnership such as ours with Skybox helps to give a unique spin on our event and provides new content that others may not have seen before. Furthermore, it encourages players to get involved, and can even help to raise the skill ceiling of the overall community in Ireland. A higher skill ceiling means greater competition, and the potential for Irish players to eventually compete on the global stage. There are many passionate voices in the Irish Counter-Strike community, and Skybox helps give them the tools to be heard.
​
​
#### Additional information
ICL is open to anyone who lives on the island of Ireland, or who lives outside of Ireland but is Irish. Players from other regions can also be vouched for by an existing Irish player in order to join and play in the hub. 
​

ICL's socials: 
- [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/67WZqKUb) 
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/icl_hub)
- [Faceit](https://www.faceit.com/en/hub/d9dba8bd-6bf9-435f-bdbc-808ae42d21bd/Irish%20Challenger%20League)

The CS:GO and the Esports scene in Peru is booming, and we thought it would be very interesting to ask Juan a few questions.

The growing CS:GO scene in Peru


_We had the chance to sit down (online, of course) with our partner in Peru, Juan. Juan has a massive network in Peru, and he now is leading the charge in setting up events all over Peru with big companies such as Claro and Logitech G behind him. The CS:GO and the Esports scene in Peru is booming, and we thought it would be very interesting to ask Juan a few questions._ 
​
### Juan aka BassKnockin
​
**Tell us a bit about yourself and how you got involved in Esports and what your dreams are moving forward with Esports/CS:GO in Peru.**
​
I’m Juan Yepez known as Bass Knockin. I am a teacher and CS:GO caster. I got involved in Esports from I was 14 years old. I played CS:GO and Call of Duty back then, due to personal things I stopped playing, but still had the idea of returning to Esports someday. I started streaming a couple of years ago; different content from RPG games to adventure games and so on. 
​
One day I saw an add about a tournament called Lightspeed Cup by Logitech G. This tournament was looking for amateur casters to broadcast their  CS:GO games for some months in order to win some tools to become a better caster. I won and from that moment on my career as a caster started to grow. I participated as a caster for Claro in an event called MassGamers. In addition to this I kept working with Logitech G in different events. 
​
Nowadays, I help Logitech in tournament management and streaming. As to the dreams I have, the chance to have the opportunity to produce or broadcast a Major made in Peru and have the opportunity to interview top players and team managers from around the world. 


![Peru](/images/posts/peru-3.jpg)

### The development of the CS:GO scene in Peru. 
​
**How has the CS:GO scene developed in recent years and what trends are you experiencing?**
​
In Peru when you hear the word _Esports_ many people refer to Dota 2 as a popular game.  There is a big community, however during the past year the CS:GO community has started to grow. Many people have started to host community tournaments to produce new talent and there’s a pro league circuit we have in our country. However not all the teams are able attend it due to the level. 
​
Since we started our lockdown due to COVID-19 many Peruvian players started to play CS:GO again and that was kinda a push for many brands to start supporting events and tournaments. Nowadays, there are many amateur leagues and tournaments in our country which are sponsored by very important brands such Logitech G. 
​
In regards to the number of viewers we have in CS:GO, I have to say that the number has increased dramatically during these past two years. Many people cheer  for different teams now; anything from amateur to pro and that’s a great thing to develop a CS:GO community in Peru.  
​
![Peru](/images/posts/peru-2.jpg)

### Skybox in Peru
​
**How do you think Skybox can potentially help the CS:GO scene in Peru to grow and help players to reach a higher level of gameplay?**
​
When I first saw Skybox it was live on Intel Master’s, I was amazed  by the power of the tool and how easy you can analyze games you played in or other teams played. There were some teams aware of this tool but it was kind of hard to get into the Early Access stage, so that’s why I decided to reach out to you guys. I thought it would be very helpful and interesting to introduce Skybox to the Peruvian players and teams. 
​
Skybox can not only help players and teams with an amazing software, but furthermore Skybox can  provide knowledge to players and teams regarding worldwide tournaments and organization. I would be nice to see Skybox uniting the CS:GO Peruvian community with the international community due to the contacts SKYBOX has with other pro teams, tournaments and events around the world.
​
Skybox in my opinion is not only a software to analyze matches and track down data from players, but more importantly a platform that the Peruvian teams and players can use to achieve the dream to become pro players and tier 1 teams. 
​
​
#### Additional information
For the last event in Peru, where Juan used Skybox, more than 93.000 were watching, an event sponsored by Logitech G. 
​

BassKnockin's socials: 
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/BassESports)
- [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/bassknockinoficial)

Skybox unveils it's CS:GO prediction tool, showcased at the BLAST Premier Fall Final.

CS:GO predictions at BLAST Premier Fall Final


We teamed up with BLAST and Business Development company Copenhagen Capacity to showcase a CS:GO prediction application that we for a long time have been wanting to do.
​
### It all began with an "AI Hackathon".
More than 373 participants from more than 20 different countries participated in the competition. Is it actually possible to predict the outcome of CS:GO rounds and matches? Algorithms were developed and the three winning teams were showcased during BLAST Premier Fall Final 2020. The result: an approximately 73% accuracy. The winning teams came from India, Slovakia and the United States. 

![Skybox Nuke with player paths](/images/posts/skybox-nuke.jpg "Skybox")
​
### Further development of the prediction tool in 2021. 
Moving forward, we will continue to develop on the concept and the idea, bringing in feedback from our fanbase. We were amazed to see how many participants were involved, which goes to show that the Skybox community is steadily growing. We are really excited to dig deeper into this amazing tool in 2021. These algorithms can be useful, within and outside esports. **Our CEO, Ethan Cooper explains**: 
​
> We are really excited about making the technology available to the broader CS:GO community next year (2021).  

​
If you are interested in reading more, please go ahead and click [here](https://esportsinsider.com/2020/12/csgo-prediction-tool-showcased-at-blast-premier-fall-final/) for the article brought in Esports Insider.

Mental health and high performance in CS:GO goes hand in hand. 

Mental health and CS:GO go hand in hand.


Mental stress and pressure is really an unspoken part of the game for many within esports. As a gamer, your mental health is just as important as your physical health. We all know physical injuries happen, just like in any other sport. However, gamers that do experience challenges with their mental health can actually see a big dip in their performance during matches and even more so during big events and competitions. 
​
For that reason, we  have decided to collect a few tips and tricks on how to improve your mental health and by that perform at the highest level possible:
​
- Sleep
- Unplug
- Exercise

_Should you need any help in incorporate this to your daily rutine, please do not hesitate to reach out to us for guidance._ 

## Sleep

![Sleep](/images/posts/sleep.jpg)

Yes, it is indeed a cliche - but sleep is important and especially for gamers that need to perform on a high level. And the best part of it, you don’t even have to leave the house (COVID-19 approved).  The benefit of quality sleep is not to be underestimated. It will depend on the individual on how much sleep is needed, but a good rule of thumb is to get at least 6 hours of sleep every night. Some might need more, say 8, 9 or 10 hours of sleep every night. The most important part is that you are consistent in your sleeping habits. Sleep improves our memory and learning ability as well as it is a big part of our emotional health. So if you ever wake up and feel grumpy and blue, more sleep more do the trick. 
​
As a dedicated gamer there is a good chance that you are playing between 5 or even 7 days a week. You are constantly learning when you play and you have to adapt to new strategies and ideas. This can be very exhausting and if you don’t get a good nights sleep you will have a hard time performing on a high level. This can lead to frustration and have an effect on your mental health. Furthermore, as a gamer you are constantly under a lot of stress to perform when it matters. You might even be in a position where your salary depends on your performance, which can lead to a stressful environment if you do not perform as excepted. Sleep helps and allows your mind to take a break and recover. **Oh, and the best part - its free!**

## Unplug

![Unplug](/images/posts/unplug.jpeg)

Getting away from all technological stimulation. Yes, that is correct - **no phone, no Netflix, no computer, no internet.** If you after reading this is thinking “No way I can do that”, then you definitely need to unplug. As a competitive gamer you are basically _plugged in_ as soon as you turn on your computer and before you start playing you have probably turned on your TV or scrolled through your phone. You may also feel stressed out or an additional amount of pressure when going through results and game analysis. You are probably being bombarded with information, some teams or players might perform better than you. This can indeed take a toll on your confidence and affect your performance.
​
Therefore, make sure that you unplug yourself every day. Go for a walk, read a book, go to the gym - the choices are many. Unplugging is not only for gamers, but for everyone who has a job where you are around technology all the time. Yes, it might sound boring and yes you might be bored to begin with. However, you will benefit from this, and your body and mind will _catch a break_ from your normal routines in front of the computer. Another thing you might consider is to put your phone away when going to bed or even better - leave it away from your bed so you do not get distracted or tempted to “just check a few things”. At the end of the day, unplugging is something you and your team should commit to do, together as a team. 

## Exercise

![Exercise](/images/posts/exercise.jpg)

**Oh man, what a surprise huh?** Exercise! Yeah, that is probably what you are thinking right about now. How many times have you heard that exercising is good for you? Probably more than we you can count. However truth be told,  exercising is a great way to improve your overall health as well as calmness. When you exercise you release endorphins and this will help you keep your spirit high and stay mentally and physically on top of your game. Exercising is key for having a strong mental health. We could go on and on in regards to why you should exercise, but instead we just want to put emphasis on how important it is for you and your performance as a competitive gamer. **1. 2. 3. GO!**

_We do understand and appreciate that players and teams are different. However, as a team, we do hope that you help one another to stay mentally strong and healthy. By doing so you will feel better and perform better._

Wolves Esports is a German-based e-sports organisation that strives to be a top contender in Germany.

Customer story: Wolves Esport


## Customer story: Wolves Esport
Wolves Esports is a German-based e-sports organisation that strives to be a top contender in Germany as well as Europe. Their CS:GO team is now preparing for their first season in ESEA Main, where the clear goal is to avoid relegation. Wolves Esports compete in different games such as League of Legends, Rainbow Six: Siege and of course CS:GO.

> Skybox allowed us to get a deeper understanding and keep track of our individual performances 

Wolves Esports has been part of the Skybox family since the early launch back in September 2019. This means that they have been able to experience the changes that has been made along the way, and themselves provided excellent feedback and ideas. We had the chance to speak to Andre Matuszak, the COO of Wolves Esports and ask him what Skybox meant to them and their team. He told us "Skybox allowed us to get a deeper understanding and keep track of our individual performances in matches and scrims. With the replay tool we’ve been able to identify mistakes, find and showcase solutions in a more efficient way. Being able to properly visualise important things for others is a welcomed feature we often make use of."

### Skybox will help in reaching longterm goals.

Even though Wolves Esports has in fact performed very well the lat few seasons, they strive for more. As mentioned about, to avoid relegation from ESEA main is the main priority. However, when it comes to Germany and the 99Damange league, the minimum goal is to qualify for Division 2-3 playoffs yet again. This will hopefully result in a promotion to Division 2. Andre has no doubt that Skybox will play a vital part of the ongoing success.

_If you would like to read more about Wolves Esports, below you will find links to their website and Social Media._

- [Website](https://www.wolves-esports.com/)
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/wolves_esports)
- [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/wolvesesports)


Teknikum in Växjö Sweden, is offering e-sport to their students and has throughout the last year experienced an increased interest.

Skybox, an invaluable tool when teaching CS:GO.


## Skybox, an invaluable tool when teaching CS:GO. 

**Teknikum in Växjö Sweden**, is offering esport to their students and has throughout the last year experienced an increased interest in esport and especially CS:GO. It is an extra curricular activity that they offer their students where they implement areas such as physical and mental training. We had the opportunity to speak to Linus Glans, who is responsible for the e-sport profile and for teaching CS:GO. 
 
### Skybox makes it easier to understand and improve.

Linus explained that it can indeed be tricky and challenging to teach students, and when you have around 15 students at each class you have to make sure to utilise your time the best way possible. 
 
> Before Skybox it was really hard for me to assign my students to evaluate their own, and their team performances. With Skybox we have the ability to get an overview of our played games right away. We can look at rotations, flashes, smokes, defensive and offensive setups and easily tweak and change the things we need.  
 
### Easy to use - easy to understand. 
Skybox is a platform that makes it easy for teams to figure out, in detail, what happened during a game, round or a sequence. However, it is also a great tool to highlight great gameplay, which is an area that is key when you teach. Students have to be encouraged and excited to play.  When speaking to Linus about this part of the game, he agrees that it is a very important aspect of improving your game. 
 
> It’s really easy for me with Skybox to highlight good performances, both individually and as a team. Stuff such as grenade deployment and team play is hard for students to see and observe during the game and to have the ability to illustrate this right after a game is extremely valuable.  

### A platform for players and coaches. 

Skybox is meant as a platform that can help in various ways, for players that are playing the game as well as coaches that are observing. We are very happy that we are able to help schools making it easier for them to teach and help their students as much as possible. For Linus there is one particular area that has helped him tremendously.
 
> Another great thing is to use professional games in Skybox to illustrate detailed strategies and setups that you can’t really see when watching the same game on the regular broadcast.  
 
A big thank you to Linus and Teknikum for an interesting and inspiring interview. If you live in Sweden and want to read more about the program, click [here](https://vaxjo.se/sidor/forskola-och-skola/gymnasieskola/teknikum/program-pa-teknikum/e-sportsprofil.html). 


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